You Don’t Have to Go it Alone: Why Outsourcing Transportation is a Smart Idea in 2017

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Depending on which industry you’re working in, transportation logistics account for between 5% and 50% of your product’s total landed cost. That’s a significant outlay for any company that wants to remain profitable and viable in today’s constantly-changing logistics environment, where “going it alone” isn’t always necessary or financially feasible.

The cold supply chain, for example, is becoming more and more challenging to manage as regulatory issues, carrier capacity crunches, the need for sophisticated technology platforms, and driver shortages all take a toll on a firm’s ability to make the best possible transportation decisions. In fact, these challenges can make maintaining the in-house expertise needed to stay profitable nearly impossible.

The question is, how do you know when it’s time to stop handling transportation internally and turn some or all of it over to a reputable third party? Here are three obvious clues:

1. You can’t keep up with increased and/or fluctuating order volumes. If the 2016 holiday season hit you hard, or if your company is growing but not keeping up with the new order volume, it’s time to take a good hard look at how you’re managing transportation.

2.You’re not focusing on your company’s core competencies. Spending too much time and effort managing the complicated transportation process? It’s time to re-center your focus and outsource transportation to a trusted business partner.

3. Your labor costs are skyrocketing. Labor is one of the most expensive aspects of running a cold supply chain. When you outsource the task to a third party like Hanson Logistics, many of these labor worries and expenses will disappear.

The Power of One

It’s no secret that transportation buyers who move high volumes of freight have more buying power in the marketplace. As one of the fastest growing 3PLs in the cold chain industry, Hanson Transportation Logistics moves millions of pounds of freight across the country for many of the most respected brands. As an LTL shipper, you can leverage Hanson’s extensive transportation carrier network, technology, and expertise to assure efficiency and service are delivered on time, at very competitive rates.

Outsourcing transportation also allows you to:

• Drive the complexity out of transportation. From our TMS portal to your point of contact, we remove the complexity from your transportation and make it simple. We solve customer problems, deal with carrier performance, and make things happen.

• Leverage better rates. Our negotiated rates are far less than most smaller shippers can hope to achieve; and that savings goes right to your bottom line. You’ll save in many ways, including lower rates, better audits, and lower overhead.

• Tackle transportation from concept to completion. From rating to scheduling, track and trace, exceptions, audit, and freight bill payment, we serve as your dedicated resource to handle the entire process.

ABOUT HANSON LOGISTICS

Hanson Logistics provides end-to-end temperature-controlled distribution, transportation, warehousing and supply chain services, including multi-vendor consolidation services to the nation's major retailers. As one of the largest providers in the US, the company operates a growing refrigerated transportation fleet and 9 facilities in the central states, totaling 39 million cu. ft. with more than 200 Hanson teammates.